Mitchell saw riches where most saw stone

The oil and gas boom that is revolutionizing the politics and economics of energy worldwide started in the 1980s with the solitary — even stubborn — persistence of George Mitchell.

Mitchell, who died Friday at the age of 94, believed then that he could produce natural gas from a dense underground formation of shale rock beneath Fort Worth.

Few thought he would succeed and even his own engineers disagreed with his approach.

But Mitchell pushed employees at Mitchell Energy & Development to keep at it, toiling for 17 years with efforts to combine hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling in a way that could unlock natural gas.

“My engineers kept telling me, ‘You are wasting your money, Mitchell,’” he told Forbes in 2009. “And I said, ‘Well damn it, let’s figure this thing out because there is no question there is a tremendous source bed that’s about 250 feet thick.’ We made it to be the hottest thing going.”

As he approached age 80, after a long and successful career in the oil industry, natural gas started flowing at high rates from his experimental wells in what became known as the Barnett Shale play of North Texas, according to a biography on the website of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation.

Mitchell’s innovation produced the modern combination of hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling and slick water — a mix of water, sand and chemicals forced into a rock formation to unlock oil and gas — that transformed the world energy landscape, said Mark Zoback, a professor of geophysics at Stanford University.

The resulting booms in shale gas and oil led to huge jumps in U.S. fossil fuel production, billions of dollars of new investments, and ballooning ranks of energy companies throughout Texas.

Since 2000, U.S. oil and natural gas production both have surged about 30 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“Think about where we were before it happened,” Smitherman said. “We were contemplating importing natural gas from other countries. Electricity prices were very high in Texas… And all of that has turned completely 180 degrees.”

Mitchell’s success came with a persistent effort to squeeze natural gas out of rocks with pores 1,000 times smaller than the pores in a tombstone, Zoback said.

But beyond hoping to fracture those rocks and pull out gas, Mitchell also targeted fossil fuel-rich rocks that extended more outward than downward, he said.

“It was also the realization that these formations are not very thick, maybe a couple of hundred feet thick, but they’re laterally very extensive,” Zoback said.

While he developed the new approach, drilling laterally and using hydraulic fracturing, Mitchell spent a lot of time and frustration digesting failure.

“It took a decade and a half of conviction, investment and dogged determination,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author and oil industry historian Daniel Yergin said in a statement. “In the face of great skepticism and refusing to accept ‘no’ as an answer, Mitchell dramatically changed America’s energy position.”

The shale boom brought on by Mitchell’s innovation led to major growth at companies like Apache, Anadarko Petroleum, Chesapeake Energy, and Devon Energy, said Joe Pratt, an oil historian and director of the Houston History Project at the University of Houston. Devon bought Mitchell’s company for about $3 billion in 2002.

Energy majors eventually got in on the shale action, with Exxon Mobil purchasing natural gas player XTO Energy for about $25 billion in 2010.

“Until just a few years ago, we were getting half of our electricity from coal and we were generating 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide (annually) doing so,” said Zoback. “Those emissions are rapidly going down.”

However the environmental debate plays out, it’s not debatable that the huge supplies of U.S. natural gas pushed its price down to the lowest levels in a decade, prompting chemical companies and other manufacturers to take advantage of the cheap fuel.

Those jobs and investments might not have been possible without Mitchell’s vision and determination, Pratt said.

“Conventional wisdom was that it couldn’t be done and his persistence was based on his faith that it could be done,” Pratt said.

“Now would there have been someone else with the confidence and persistence to have made this possible? We’ll never know, will we?”

Photo: Buster Dean / Houston Chronicle

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Oil man and real estate developer George P. Mitchell in his office in November 1979.

Oil man and real estate developer George P. Mitchell in his office in November 1979.

Photo: Buster Dean / Houston Chronicle

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A Mitchell Energy and Development Corp. driller sits on a prospect hole in North Texas in 1987.

A Mitchell Energy and Development Corp. driller sits on a prospect hole in North Texas in 1987.

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Drilling mud flies as drillers pull drilling pipe from a Mitchell Energy and Development Corp. well in Wise County, Texas on May 16, 2000.

Drilling mud flies as drillers pull drilling pipe from a Mitchell Energy and Development Corp. well in Wise County, Texas on May 16, 2000.

Photo: DALE BLACKWELL / AP

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Mitchell Energy & Development Corp. had $13 million worth of equipment on hand for a massive foam "frac" job at its Limestone County well in March 1980.

Mitchell Energy & Development Corp. had $13 million worth of equipment on hand for a massive foam "frac" job at its Limestone County well in March 1980.

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George P. Mitchell, Chairman and CEO of The Mitchell Family Corporation, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009, in his downtown Houston office.

George P. Mitchell, Chairman and CEO of The Mitchell Family Corporation, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009, in his downtown Houston office.

Photo: Nick de la Torre / Houston Chronicle

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Sheridan Mitchell Lorenz, right, reaches up to touch the face of the sculpture of her father, The Woodlands founder George P. Mitchell, after it was unveiled at Town Green Park Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007, in The Woodlands, Texas. Lorenz stands with Carla Macaw, left, and Bill Kendrick. less

Sheridan Mitchell Lorenz, right, reaches up to touch the face of the sculpture of her father, The Woodlands founder George P. Mitchell, after it was unveiled at Town Green Park Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007, in The ... more

Photo: Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle

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George and Cynthia Mitchell during opening of Pavilion 1990.

George and Cynthia Mitchell during opening of Pavilion 1990.

Photo: Mitchell archive / Mitchell archive

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George P. Mitchell rides with a grandson as he, family and friends participate in a procession after a memorial for his wife Cynthia Woods Mitchell Monday, Jan. 4, 2010, in Trinity Episcopal Church in Galveston. Cynthia Mitchell Woods, an arts patron, environmentalist and historical preservationist was 87 when she passed. less

George P. Mitchell rides with a grandson as he, family and friends participate in a procession after a memorial for his wife Cynthia Woods Mitchell Monday, Jan. 4, 2010, in Trinity Episcopal Church in ... more

Photo: Nick de la Torre / Houston Chronicle

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George Mitchell looks at his award, presented to him by IHS-CERA, for his involvement in shale gas development during a CERAWeek luncheon Wednesday, March 9, 2011, in the Hilton Americas hotel in Houston.

George Mitchell looks at his award, presented to him by IHS-CERA, for his involvement in shale gas development during a CERAWeek luncheon Wednesday, March 9, 2011, in the Hilton Americas hotel in Houston.

Photo: Nick de la Torre / Houston Chronicle

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Janie and Dick DeGuerin with George Mitchell at the "Waltz Across Texas" Mardi Gras Ball at The Tremont Hotel Saturday Feb. 09, 2013.

Janie and Dick DeGuerin with George Mitchell at the "Waltz Across Texas" Mardi Gras Ball at The Tremont Hotel Saturday Feb. 09, 2013.

Photo: Dave Rossman / For the Houston Chronicle

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Tiziana and Grant Mitchell, with his father, George Mitchell.

Tiziana and Grant Mitchell, with his father, George Mitchell.

Photo: Gary Fountain / For the Chronicle

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Eugene Krantz and George Mitchell, following the History-Making Texan Award presentation, attend the Texas State History Museum Foundation's Ninth Annual Texas Independence Day Dinner. The event took place at The Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin on Wednesday, February 27. less

Eugene Krantz and George Mitchell, following the History-Making Texan Award presentation, attend the Texas State History Museum Foundation's Ninth Annual Texas Independence Day Dinner. The event took place ... more

Photo: Courtesy photo / Courtesy photo

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George Mitchell and his sister Maria Ballantyne at the Centennial Celebration of the Hotel Galvez in 2011.

George Mitchell and his sister Maria Ballantyne at the Centennial Celebration of the Hotel Galvez in 2011.

Photo: Dave Rossman / For the Chronicle

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George Mitchell and Maria Ballantyne at the Friends for Heart Disease and Stroke benefit.

George Mitchell and Maria Ballantyne at the Friends for Heart Disease and Stroke benefit.

Photo: Gary Fountain / For the Chronicle

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Pioneering oilman and developer George Mitchell at the annual conference of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, where he was honored.

Pioneering oilman and developer George Mitchell at the annual conference of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, where he was honored.

Photo: Gary Fountain / For the Chronicle

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Pioneering oilman and developer George Mitchell, with an award from the annual conference of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, where he was honored.

Pioneering oilman and developer George Mitchell, with an award from the annual conference of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, where he was honored.

Photo: Gary Fountain / For the Chronicle

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Visitors stand on a bridge spanning across Cook's Branch stream while at the 5,650 acres of Cook's Branch Conservancy in Montgomery County north of Houston, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012, in Montgomery. Operated as a program of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, Cook's Branch Conservancy offers a rare glimpse into what nearly a century of regeneration looks like in the Pineywoods region of East Texas. less

Visitors stand on a bridge spanning across Cook's Branch stream while at the 5,650 acres of Cook's Branch Conservancy in Montgomery County north of Houston, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012, in Montgomery. Operated ... more

Sheridan Mitchell Lorenz (left), daughter of legendary oil man George Mitchell, talks about how happy she is to see the results of a controlled burn with her niece Sarah Mitchell, executive director of Cook's Branch Conservancy , Thursday, May 24, 2012, on the Cook's Branch Conservancy in Montgomery County. The conservancy was a clear-cut, overgrazed working ranch, owned by the George and Cynthia Mitchell family, earned the 2012 Leopold Conservation Award, the state's highest honor recognizing habitat management and wildlife conservation on private land. less

Sheridan Mitchell Lorenz (left), daughter of legendary oil man George Mitchell, talks about how happy she is to see the results of a controlled burn with her niece Sarah Mitchell, executive director of Cook's ... more

Photo: Nick de la Torre / Houston Chronicle

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From left: Cathy Frederickson, Sheridan Mitchell Lorenz (daughter of legendary oil man George Mitchell) and Suzie Heimburger at the Centennial Celebration of the Hotel Galvez Saturday June 11,2011.

From left: Cathy Frederickson, Sheridan Mitchell Lorenz (daughter of legendary oil man George Mitchell) and Suzie Heimburger at the Centennial Celebration of the Hotel Galvez Saturday June 11,2011.